The field of the invention relates to photography and particularly to the instruction thereof concerning the relationships between equipment and between the equipment and subject. Prior methods of instruction include the textbook method in which reading materials explain the reasons or purpose of a particular piece of equipment and the effect that the piece of equipment would produce when placed at a certain distance and angle from the subject and at a certain height. This information while important to a proper understanding of the photographic art fails to provide the student with an appreciation of the practical and physical arrangement of the equipment.
Another prior art method of instruction is actual studio teaching. In this method, the physical equipment must be moved to different positions to simulate a real photographic situation. The movement of the equipment from one arrangement to another requires the use of the studio itself thereby making it unusable for business purposes at the time of teaching. In addition, the time consumed by the physical arrangement and rearrangement of the equipment is lengthy and wasteful for both the instructor and student since many idle minutes are spent while the equipment is disassembled, moved and reassembled. Further, there is a risk that the expensive and delicate equipment will be inadvertently damaged during the course of the many different layouts which are arranged to teach the student. Also, in both of these prior methods, there is no simple medium of reference supplied for the student to accurately record the many different positions (distance, angle and height) of the equipment. Therefore, only through continuous repeating and memorizing can a particular layout be mastered and remembered.
There are many prior art devices which provide a miniature visual picture and simulate the functioning of a fullsize object. The scale models of cars, planes, trains, boats and other vehicles are ready examples. There are scale models of entire manufacturing plants as described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,958,142 issued on Nov. 1, 1960 to H. Kershaw, et al. The concept of scale models in the field of decorating is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,269,034 issued on Aug. 30, 1966 to M. Glass, et al. And, U.S. Pat. No. 2,105,592 issued on Jan. 18, 1938 to L. Hathaway, et al, discloses the use of a pegboard with miniature utility poles adaptable for arrangement simulate various structural properties of pole-line construction. However, none of the above prior art is directed to the art of photography and utilizes models adapted to be arranged on a surface with a predetermined pattern of holes corresponding to the distance measured from a common center point and, in addition, are adapted to be inserted into selected ones of the holes to varying depths which interrelated to the distance of the holes from the common center point. This method of teaching the relationship of equipment in photography provides a three-variable coordinate system for easy recording of the position of equipment.